


mystery of love

by ophelialilies



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Eventual Smut, Greek Mythology AU, Implied Sexual Content, Inspired by The Fall of Icarus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, a retelling of Icarus, markhyuck, no prior knowledge is needed to read this fic hehe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:00:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23409463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ophelialilies/pseuds/ophelialilies
Summary: Mark clenches and groans, a breathy sound that crawls from his lips before he can stop it. the voice that had been singing stops. somewhere, there are hushed whispers and footsteps, and then the most beautiful person Mark has ever seen enters the room, a flurry of golden silk, curly ashen hair, amber eyes and Cupid shaped lips.(or, a retelling of "The Fall of Icarus", in which Icarus survives)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 28
Kudos: 297





	1. falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [damnneovelvet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnneovelvet/gifts).



> for the most beautiful human in this world, haru. this is for you ♡
> 
> this is my retelling of "the fall of icarus", a story from greek mythology! you don't need to know anything about the original story for this to make sense so don't worry !! 
> 
> if you're reading this in quarantine or self-isolation, I hope it makes you happy ♡ we will get though this, I promise. just take things one day at a time. 
> 
> there's a video edit I made to go with this, you can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzQpL-mJh1A&feature=youtu.be). if you ever want to talk about my fics or markhyuck or the state of the world my twitter is [ophelialilies](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) :)
> 
> as always, happy reading !!
> 
> ophelia ♡♡♡

The first thing Mark sees when he opens his eyes is the sky. Barely.

It’s a bright blue, concealed by the swaying of leaves dangling delicately from tree branches. Sunlight filters through in speckles of golden shade which occasionally make him blink, as light momentarily threatens to blind him. He can hear the sea, somewhere close by, can smell the salt, Poseidon’s wrath crashing against the shore. The ground beneath him is cool to the touch and distinctly marble, like that of a temple. A temple with no roof, apparently. A voice sweeter than a siren’s is singing in another room, the gentle strings of a lyre plucking out a melodic tune.

Then, with consciousness comes pain, like a clap of lightning, and it’s as if Mark’s back is being torn open all over again. He clenches and groans, a breathy sound that crawls from his lips before he can stop it. The voice that had been singing stops. Somewhere, there are hushed whispers and footsteps, and then the most beautiful person Mark has ever seen enters the room, a flurry of golden silk, curly ashen hair, amber eyes and Cupid shaped lips.

∾

_My son, it is crucial that you do as I say,_ his father had whispered to him through the darkness. _Do not fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea._

_I know,_ Mark had reassured his father, smiling softly and placing a hand on his old, hunched shoulder. In the dark he couldn’t see his tired, old face, but knew he was nodding, a small, leathery smile on his lips. A calculating look in his eye.

With wax and feathers on their bare backs – an imitation of the wings of angels – Mark and Daedalus had taken flight. Their feet left the ground, leaving behind them the darkness of imprisonment as they flew higher towards freedom. The morning wind was cold but clean, and Mark’s limbs cut through it like a knife as they glided north. The air rippled through his hair like water, the feathers on his back flapping gently.

Clouds hung low in the sky and it was no time before they danced above them, out of the view of those below, alone between the land and the heavens. Nothing short of ecstasy had coursed through Mark’s veins, every part of him itching to fly higher, to soar wider, to feel the wind ripple through the feathers of his makeshift wings as he defied gravity effortlessly.

Above the land and sea, those below were mere specs, like thousands of tiny ants underfoot. A gust of wind rushed past, as if Euros was challenging him, and Mark accepted. He drove upwards, riding the current like a wave, the warmth of the sun kissing his skin.

He didn’t hear his father’s shouts. Not even the warning his father gave earlier echoed in his mind. His mind was, for the first time in a long time, empty.

Flying was like a drug: one taste of freedom and he was hooked. It put hands over his eyes, over his ears and his mind, leaving him only with the beating of his heart, and Mark was starting to lose himself in euphoria when he felt the wax on his back begin to burn into his skin, like molten lava, melting under the intense glare of Apollo’s sun. Its sharp kiss stung and Mark screamed in pain as he began to fall.

Around him, feathers flew loose, swaying back and forth like leaves caught in the breeze. At first, he fell slowly, but soon gained momentum with increasing speed, until he was plummeting towards the earth below. He lost sight of his father behind the clouds, the silhouette of the old man disappearing as the dark, choppy ocean below hurled itself closer towards him.

Finally its blue waters kissed Mark’s skin with a hard smack as he collided with the waves, sinking beneath the surface into its murky depths. It was cold, like ice, snatching his breath and burying it somewhere far below. His head began to spin in hypoxic delirium, eyelids growing heavy and closing against the salt water. The last thing Mark saw was the blue-tinted sunlight fading, and his outstretched fingers reaching towards the light above.

∾

“Oh.” a voice says. “You’re awake.”

Above him, a golden boy blinks. Tall – Mark notes – his golden silk chiton draped from one shoulder to the opposite hip, revealing the sunkissed skin of his bare chest. Golden wavy locks of hair shimmer like waves in the sunlight, cascading over his delicate eyelashes framing amber eyes, a perfect nose and lips shaped like a heart. The boy is beauty embodied, and Mark is staring.

He clears his throat. The other boy continues to stare down at him, silent, eyes wide.

“ _Are_ you awake?” he asks eventually after Mark's dumbstruck silence, cocking his head to the side. Mark’s throat feels hoarse and unused in his throat. Unable to speak, Mark nods, grimacing when pain travels up his spine to his neck at the movement, like a whip of lightning. He closes his eyes, biting back a groan.

“Let me help you,” the mysterious boy says, and his voice is gentle, soft. Mark hears him move, and then he feels tender fingers at his neck. Alert, Mark opens his eyes to meet the boy’s. They seem to be asking a silent question, and Mark decides he trusts the boy, that he looks well intentioned, and he's too weak to do otherwise, so he relaxes into his touch. The boy’s long, delicate fingers wrap around the base of his neck, lifting upwards and sliding a dense pillow beneath Mark’s head. He instantly feels better and the pain subsides.

“Thank you,” Mark mutters weakly, slowly becoming aware of a dull ache in his back, throbbing like the beating of a heart. The skin feels tender, exposed and vulnerable.

“You are quite hurt,” the boy says, and there is genuine concern in his warm eyes. “I have done my best to look after you, but your wounds are severe,” the boy is saying, and Mark’s mind is whirring. _Where is he? Who is this boy? How long was he out?_

Mark wants to ask these questions. Wants answers. But he can see in the boy’s eyes that he has questions too. So he lets the other speak first.

“Who are you?” the boy asks, and Mark takes a moment, the words pounding in his head with the onset of a headache.

“Icarus,” he replies, using the name most knew him by, the name his father gave him but rarely used. At the mention of the name, something flashes across the boy’s eyes. Something cold, silver and slippery, like shock in its purest form. For a moment, he looks stunned, like a statue of disbelief. But just as quickly as it arrives, it disappears, and his expression is soft once more. “You can call me Mark, though,”

“Mark,” the boy says, as if pondering the name, testing it out.

“I’m the son of Daedalus,” Mark speaks again.

“Daedalus?” the boy says incredulously, his eyebrows quirking upwards. “As in the great architect?”

Mark nods, but immediately regrets it, another bolt of pain erupting through his spine. He winces, and the boy places a tender hand on his, a silent gesture, as if saying, it’s alright.

“He’s an incredible man, your father. I’ve heard tales of his inventions, his works. Is he really as marvellous as they say?” the boy asks. Mark feels a wave of pride wash over him, warm and intoxicating, like a glass of nectar in the summertime.

“Yes,” Mark says, unable to hide his smile. However, the thought of his father is immediately followed by a wave of guilt, unease and concern stirring in his gut. It quickly pulls the smile from his face. He changes the subject.

“Who are you?”

“Donghyuck,” the boy says, and it’s an unusual name. “Son of Apollo,” he speaks again, but this time there’s a bite in his words, a hint of bitterness. Like the flash of surprise Mark had seen earlier, it’s gone as fast as it came. But it makes sense, him being the son of Apollo. He looks like the sun itself.

“Are you a god?” Mark asks.

The boy laughs. “No. Just a nymph.”

Mark had heard tales of nymphs in faraway lands. Some of them lived on enchanted islands, ones you could only find when the stars aligned, or the gods granted you permission. “I’m the nymph of this island, actually.”

“Island?” Mark perks up at that.

“Yes. That’s where we are. My home; the island of Icaria,” the boy – Donghyuck – says, and for a moment Mark’s mind is slow, lagging behind his heart.

“Icaria?” he asks dumbly. Donghyuck nods.

“Peculiar,” Mark says, his head tilted to the side. He can feel Donghyuck’s eyes on him from where he kneels next to him.

“Why?”

“I’ve never heard of an island called Icaria. And why is its name so similar to mine?”

“I can answer the first question. This island is hidden, a secret. Few people in the mythical realm know about it. Not even the gods,” Donghyuck speaks, and Mark watches his lips move. “What I cannot answer is your second question, why it appears to be named after you. I was hoping you could tell me that,” Donghyuck says, and they stare at each other for a moment, mostly in awe. Unfortunately, Mark has no clue either.

“If it’s a hidden island, how did I get here?” Mark asks, still feeling rather like an imbecile. Knowing nothing makes him feel vulnerable, and perhaps he would be afraid too, were it not for the aura of kindness that radiates from the golden nymph in front of him.

“I rescued you,” Donghyuck says. Mark blinks.

“I was in the fields, picking flowers, when I saw you fall from the sky, crash into the ocean off the shore. I prayed for Poseidon to let me pass, and swam out to where you had sunk. When I found you, you were lying lifeless on the seabed and I thought you were dead. Then I saw little bubbles of air floating from your nose, and I realised you were alive. I swam us to the surface, hauled you back to shore and then carried you here, to the temple,” Donghyuck pauses.

“You’re heavy, you know,” he says through a laugh.

Overwhelmed with gratitude, awe, and the urge to laugh too, Mark has no idea what to say.

“Thank you,” he says, and it’s breathless. He takes the boy’s hand in his, squeezes it. From the look in Donghyuck’s eyes, he knows the boy can sense his gratitude. He smiles, and Donghyuck returns it. It’s blinding at first, his teeth like mother pearls of the ocean, his lips soft and pink. It reaches his eyes, alive and dancing with mirth. He looks beautiful.

“How long have I been out?” Mark asks, changing the subject to avoid pondering the strange warmth blossoming in his chest.

“A few days, by now. I was starting to worry you would never wake up.”

“And you looked after me all this time?” Mark asks, as his eyes roam to his own bare chest, skin exposed, wrapped with bandages and beeswax. Donghyuck nods simply, as if he hadn’t saved Mark’s life.

“Thank you,” Mark says again.

“What were you doing, falling from the sky like that? Did Zeus kick you out or something?” Donghyuck asks, his voice light with jest. Mark tries to laugh too, ignoring the way pain in his chest protests.

“Not quite. My father made us wings out of wax and feathers,” Donghyuck coos in awe. “We used them to escape, and it was working, until I flew too close to the sun,” Mark’s face falls. “The heat melted the wax, and I fell.”

A somber silence falls between them, Mark’s thoughts wandering to his father. It’s the kind of silence you don’t know how to break, heavy with the burden of a sad tale. Donghyuck looks like he wants to say something, his lips parted slightly, but he doesn’t speak.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” Mark says, cutting through the tense air between them like a blade. “You saved my life.”

Donghyuck smiles, all glitter and gold. “You’re welcome, Mark.”

It’s strange, hearing the beautiful boy say his name. Mark’s mind turns again to the tales of mystical nymphs of the forest and the sea. Mystical is exactly what they are, surviving in tales and myths more than in the flesh. It’s a rare thing for anyone to ever see them, dependent on luck, perhaps, or the will of the gods above.

It’s like those epics Daedalus would read to Mark when he was young. His soothing, old voice, warm like honey, would read from the yellowed pages. Tales of lovers and lost souls, dancing in the stars, beneath the sea, like puppets on the stage of the gods. Mark’s heart twists, a mutated sensation, like a call, for his father.

He had known something was wrong, felt it in his bones like instinct, the day King Minos had betrayed his father. After Daedalus offered to help Minos’ enemy escape the labyrinth, Minos turned on him, a metaphorical knife in his back, imprisoning him in his own creation.

His father’s screams had reached his ears through the damp silence of the underground maze, echoing through the darkness, sending a chill down his spine. And Mark had run, faster than his feet would carry him. He found his father, crimson gash to his face, in a heap on the floor. In that moment he looked like no more than a bag of bones and old flesh. Weak.

Mark had knelt by his side, whispered words of comfort, stroked his back gently. That’s when, through hushed and laboured whispers, Daedalus revealed his plan. He pointed Mark to the blueprints, charcoal ink carving lines on the scroll in the shape of wings. With wax, feathers and string, they fashioned the designs, helped each other put them on.

And with that, through the silence of the night, they snuck out of the labyrinth – a cold dark pit that had been both their home and their prison for the last seven years – and into the sunlight which broke over the horizon bringing a new day.

The nymph peers down at him with curious eyes, as if wondering where Mark has disappeared to. Donghyuck is biting his lip, trapping words he wants to say between his lips.

“Sorry,” Mark mumbles.

“It’s okay,” Donghyuck says instead, and his eyes are warm with concern and care. Mark wonders what he did, how he pleased the gods, to deserve this situation he finds himself in. The way he fell from the sky, he should really be dead.

“Actually, before you woke up, I was going to change your bandages,” Donghyuck says, his eyes flitting over Mark’s chest. Mark’s eyes do the same.

“I can’t ask you to do that. You have done so much already,” Mark tries to say, but Donghyuck is already shushing him, wrapping an arm around his neck, helping him to stand. The skin on his back screams in agony, his bones aching and protesting with every step. It’s only with sheer willpower and the support of Donghyuck that he manages to limp.

Donghyuck leads him down a hallway which enters deeper into the temple. Rooms peel off to the left and right like roots of a tree. For a moment, Mark is reminded of a certain maze – dark and humid – and he wills the thought away, focusing instead on the pure warmth the boy beside him is radiating. Where their skin touches, wrist to shoulder, fingers to waist, it burns, as if Donghyuck is made of molten gold, honey and nothing more. A true child of Apollo.

They reach a rectangular room, all white and marble like the rest of the temple. Opposite the door, where a wall should be, there is not.

Instead; like one great window without glass; the room opens onto a field of wildflowers, made of wispy grass, yellow butterflies, honeybees and golden lilies swaying in the midday breeze. Beyond the field of flowers the land curves downward toward the shore, where there is sand whiter than Mark’s own pale skin, untouched by the sun.

And beyond that, Mark can see nothing but ocean; deep blue waves cascading against white seafoam, crashing and colliding with tumultuous energy, like the rage of Poseidon himself. Mark’s eyes gaze over miles of sea before they find the horizon, unblemished by ships or other islands.

They are, quite frankly, completely alone on this island. Perhaps even alone in this part of the world.

Mark sighs. It’s a beautiful sight. Almost like the fields of Elysium his father had told him about. For a moment, Mark wonders if when he crashed into the sea he really did die, and this is all some afterlife dream. The flowers smell sweet, the buzzing of the bees is a pleasant hum, and the salty air tastes good on his tongue.

Feeling the sudden absence of warmth, Mark turns to find Donghyuck walking ahead to gaze out at the island, too.

After a moment, he turns, a smile on his lips that is somehow more heavenly than the field of wildflowers behind him.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Donghyuck asks, but Mark isn’t looking at the landscape anymore. He’s looking at the boy in front of him. A boy Mark would easily believe to be made of gold. A boy who looks like the sunrise and smells like honeysuckle. And perhaps, in becoming so intimate with darkness, Mark had forgotten the beauty of the light.

A gentle hand on his chest stirs Mark from his daze. He eyes it curiously when he discovers it to be Donghyuck’s.

“Here,” the boy is saying, gently pushing him towards a bed adjacent to the window that he hadn’t noticed before. A wave of exhaustion passes over Mark, as if walking from the atrium to this room were an arduous trek. To his bruised and battered body, it may as well have been.

Mark lets his eyes flutter closed. He feels heavy, and the cool silk beneath him is inviting. Donghyuck laughs softly, only a gentle puff of air escaping his lips. There is no bite to it, no teasing edge.

When he feels Donghyuck’s warm fingers on his skin, he bites back a gasp of surprise, keeping his eyes closed. If he isn’t careful, Donghyuck will be able to feel how fast his heart is beating in his chest.

Despite not being a healer nymph, Donghyuck certainly has the tenderness of one. With expertly delicate hands he unwraps the bandages from Mark’s chest. He uses fresh lemon oil to disinfect the wounds on Mark’s back, where days earlier wax had boiled on his flesh. It stings, like the salty bite of the ocean, and for a moment it is as if he is being burnt all over again. And with that, comes the thoughts of falling. The thoughts of his father.

“Do you think they will scar?”

Donghyuck thinks for a moment.

“Maybe. But I think it’s unlikely. I have been treating them since your fall.”

“Thank you, again, for that,” Mark says, and Donghyuck looks surprised for a moment before laughing.

“You can stop thanking me, Mark,” he says, and Mark likes the way it sounds on his tongue.

“Besides, I have been using my special recipe.”

“What’s that?”

Donghyuck gestures out the open wall.

“Do you see those flowers?”

Mark nods; they’re the ones that fill the field in vast numbers, swaying like nymphs in the breeze.

“Those are Apollonian sunlilies. They bloom all year round, and their core is made of pure gold. They have magical properties, so I have been collecting them for years and distilling them into different potions and ointments for different uses,” Mark’s mind catches on the word years. How long had Donghyuck been here? Had he always been alone?

“One thing they do really well is heal wounds and prevent scarring,” Donghyuck finishes with a smile.

“Thank you,” Mark says, and for a moment he forgets the pain.

Donghyuck mock hits him on the chest. “What did I tell you about thanking me?”.

“Sorry, I’ll stop,” Mark says through a laugh.

The day bleeds away into a dark night which falls over the island. The sky is so clear that it’s abundant with stardust, moons and constellations. Mark can’t remember the last time he saw the stars.

He and Donghyuck are sprawled lazily on the marble floor of the main living space, a platter of grapes, nuts and dried fruits between them. Two silver chalices full of amber nectar sit beside them, numbing the intense pain humming through Mark’s body.

The silence between them is comfortable. Mark listens to crickets chirping in the vineyards, the baby birds cooing for their mothers on the shore. He can hear the gentle crash of waves against sand, the delicate rustle of the wind through the wildflowers. The night air is crisp and salty, silent but not menacing. Peaceful.

Conversation between them had flowed naturally for hours, like the current of a river, instinctive and unstoppable. Donghyuck had asked Mark about his life before the Labyrinth, and Mark had told him gladly. He often reminisced on those days before King Minos and the way he had leached into the lives of Mark and his father like a parasite. Mark told Donghyuck of his childhood, growing up in Crete, surrounded by sandy beaches and white mountains. Their home was more akin to a workshop or library, a wooden building that lived and breathed knowledge. Rooms overflowed with books, sketches, encyclopedias. His father had always preferred books to a pillow, the lounges of his study to a bed.

Mark told Donghyuck of how his father would read to him every night, each time a new poem or epic, a story of a hero or a goddess or two lost lovers. To his father’s dismay, he would never fall asleep before the end. But how could he? Every inch of his child-like spirit begged to know how the story ended; whether the hero won, the goddess prevailed, or the two lovers found each other again.

Then, when the story inevitably ended, his father would pull the silk over his body, kiss his cheek tenderly, and blow out the candles. Mark would be left in the darkness, mind awake and whirring like a machine. He would will himself to sleep, reaching out for the new day with desperate hands. Another day that he could spend with his beloved father.

Donghyuck didn’t ask about his mother, and for that, Mark is grateful.

Instead, he asks Mark what it was like to fly.

_“Euphoric,”_ Mark had said. _“Like breathing in Elysium.”_

And it was true.

Donghyuck’s eyes had widened, and he had been reminiscent of a fascinated child. Awe and wonder swirled in amongst his amber irises, and in the evening light his eyes looked like liquid gold. He had asked Mark to tell him more.

With words that did little justice, Mark explained what it was like. He painted Donghyuck a picture; one of tender clouds, cool winds, and the land below soaring past. One of freedom, like a ritual danced between the heavens and the earth.

Silence had fallen soon after that. Donghyuck appeared to be in a world of his own, a distant look in his eye and his bottom lip between his teeth, as if in thought. Occasionally, he sipped at his nectar or munched on a grape, eyes trained vacantly on the floor. What he was thinking about, Mark was unsure.

But what that silence gave Mark was an opportunity to wonder. He had so many questions, all unanswered. Mark had spent the last hour or so telling this boy about his own life, and yet he knew so little of his own. With a quick sip of liquid courage, Mark mustered the strength to break the silence between them.

“Donghyuck?”. His voice feels rough and unused. _How long had they been like that?_

The boy snaps to attention, eyes finding Mark’s own. He hums, eyebrows quirking upward slightly.

“Can I ask you something?” Mark asks tentatively, and he doesn’t miss the uncertainty that suddenly flashes across his face, if only for a moment.

“Of course,” he says, but Mark can tell he is counting every breath he takes.

“How did you end up here, on this island?” _Have you always been alone?_ Mark wants to ask, but he doesn’t, because as soon as he asks the first question, something shifts. It’s as if the comfort between them snaps, and Donghyuck goes cold, recoiling and receding in on himself. It’s in the way his eyes go quiet, his face falls, and a steely expression replaces his usual golden smile.

The silence that falls is unlike the previous. It isn’t comfortable, but awkward and tense, and Mark can’t help but feel he has crossed a line he didn’t know was there.

“I’m going to sleep now, I’m quite tired,” Donghyuck finally says, and Mark lets go of the breath he had been holding. Though his words don’t absolve the uncomfortable feeling in his gut. There isn’t a hint of tiredness in Donghyuck’s demeanour. If anything, moments ago he had been full of life, discussing the wonders of flight and freedom. Now he looks like a sinking ship, or a wilting flower.

“Okay,” Mark says, unsure of what else to do. Donghyuck stands, and with a swift movement towards his bedroom, he becomes nothing more than a flurry of golden silk and silence. He pauses in his doorway to send Mark a small smile. Then the door closes, the candle light dies, and he’s gone.

Like so many nights from his childhood, Mark is left alone in the dark with a mind that is very much awake.

∾

As Mark drifts off to sleep that night, the image of a King Minos – a tall, dominating man, muscular with a long, curly beard like waves and black eyes – blinks back at him in the dark.

∾

Soft yellow sunlight pours through a great window with no curtains, and licks at Mark’s eyelashes, tempting them open. The light feels warm, like gentle hands caressing his skin.

He opens his eyes and they instantly connect with the bookshelf opposite his bed, full of scrolls, encyclopedias, and books worn out from time and love. It reminds Mark of his father’s study, back home. Atop the chest is a sea glass vase, full of delicately preserved lavender and baby’s breath.

Mark groans. It was a restless sleep, haunted by the images of tunnels, a boy without a voice, and his father. Visions of darkness still lick at his half-awake mind. With lazy fingers he rubs at his eyes, as if rubbing away the spectre of a past he wants to forget.

Feet meet the cool marble floor gingerly as he stands, not without wincing at the excruciating protests of his bones, of his skin.

Helios has carried his sun a quarter of the way through the sky. There isn’t a cloud in sight, nothing to disturb the vast blue sky which covers the island like a dome. From the highpoint of the temple, Mark can see parts of the shore, a beach of pearly white and a sea of crystal blue. Where the two meet, there is a line of seafoam, glinting like a silver lining.

From the forest, birds chirp with the excitement of morning, and the crickets of the night are silent.

Breathing in, breathing out, Mark sighs as the fresh air eases the tightness in his chest. Then, like a flood, the memory of last night comes back.

Donghyuck had flipped like a switch at Mark’s question, disappearing silently into his room. Guilt bleeds into his heart at that thought. He had crossed some invisible line, had upset the person who had saved his life.

Mark cranes his ears. Outside the door, he hears movement. The clanging of copper pots, a whistle of steam, and the sweet humming of a boy immersed in thought. Mark sighs in relief.

And yet, he still finds himself hesitant to leave the room. He procrastinates instead by wandering to the bookshelf, every step a challenge, fuelled by his curiosity for the kinds of things Donghyuck liked to read.

Wondering what kinds of things Donghyuck liked and didn’t like – what made him laugh, smile or sing – had become normal to Mark. They were the wonderings of a lonely heart, one which had seen much darkness and despair. One that, somewhere in the dark, had found a small flicker of hope again. A tender flame.

_Aristotle, Homer, Sappho and Socrates._ Mark recognises every book on the shelf, every name. Smiling to himself fondly, he thumbed through the old pages, yellowed and worn. They smelt like old books always do; like ink, parchment, and comfort. They smelt like a humble slice of his own childhood.

And then something catches his eye.

Amongst the bookshelf lies a slim book, tucked between two larger ones that conceal its presence. Almost. Something pokes out the top of it, and when Mark grabs the book and opens it, what he finds surprises him:

An old worn piece of paper, wrinkled and torn at the edges. It’s a delicate drawing, made of lines that are barely there, depicting a young boy Mark immediately recognises as Donghyuck, playing by the shore of a beach. Next to him is another, a girl Mark doesn’t recognise, but she’s the same age and bears striking resemblance to Donghyuck. The two have bright grins on their faces, smiling at the person behind the pencil.

Mark is broken from his stupor by a faint knock at the door. The knock doesn’t wait for his answer, and Mark scrambles to close the book and tuck it away.

He does so just in time for Donghyuck to open the door with one hand, the other holding a golden tray of colourful summer fruits and a cup of steaming tea. His tentative eyes fill with surprise when they find Mark, standing half-dressed by the bookshelf.

A blush dusts his cheeks and the tips of his ears as he averts his gaze. “Oh, sorry I-...,” he takes a breath, now looking Mark in the eyes. “I thought you were asleep.”

Mark laughs, forgetting the peculiar drawing for a moment, and Donghyuck seems to relax. Yet there are puddles of apology swirling in his eyes.

“I brought you breakfast,” Donghyuck says, biting his lip, and Mark hears the unspoken words too: _I brought you a peace offering_. That eases Mark’s anxious heart, his restless mind which had been tumbling over and over with the painful thought that he had crossed a line.

Donghyuck moves into the room and places the tray on Mark’s bed. He stands awkwardly, fidgeting with his fingers.

“About last night-”

“I shouldn’t have-”

They both start speaking, and stop speaking, at the same time, looking at each other with surprised faces. Mark gestures for Donghyuck to go first.

“I’m sorry about the way I reacted last night. It was a reasonable question of you to ask, it just caught me off-guard. I didn’t mean to be cold or distant,” Donghyuck says, and his eyes shimmer in the morning light like an enchanted lake.

“It was my fault, really. I shouldn’t have asked. I won’t ever again. I promise,” Mark says, stepping closer to Donghyuck. Something in him wants to reach out, to feel Donghyuck’s touch again. So he chances it, taking Donghyuck’s golden fingers in his, rubbing them soothingly. The boy is warm in a way Mark has never been. When they touch, it is both soothing and electrifying.

Donghyuck looks at their hands and then up to Mark with a look of gratitude in his eyes. Mark wonders what secrets lie beneath them.

“Thank you,” Donghyuck all but whispers.

To Mark’s relief, things between them return to comfortable rather rapidly. More than comfortable, actually. Time slips by like an elusive sprite, one you can sense but can’t grasp, can’t stop from escaping your fingers.

Despite the rising and setting of many suns, Mark is still too weak to leave his bedroom for more than a few hours. His muscles and skin protest every movement, and it is ironically now more than ever that Mark feels imprisoned. Except, this time it’s not by a Labyrinth, but by the confines of his own body.

Every glimpse of Donghyuck he catches through the ajar door, Mark finds himself wanting to leave his room more and more. To accompany Donghyuck on his trips to the fields, the forest, the ocean. He wants to see him that way, because he knows that Donghyuck could only look even more beautiful amongst the wonders of nature, in his element.

Mark feels the uncomfortable seeds of guilt grow as time passes. He feels guilty for taking up space and resources in his home. But most of all, he feels guilty for his safety.

Somehow he had been lucky enough to fall from the sky at the right time, in the right place. To fall into the arms of a tender, caring nymph. And yet, could the same be said for his father? Who knew where he was now. If the wings had carried him to safety or if the winds had betrayed him, Mark couldn’t be sure.

He tried to bury it, for the sake of Donghyuck. He had done so much for Mark already. It wouldn’t be fair to burden him with the weight of Mark’s worries. So he keeps quiet about his father, other than when, as he often did over dinner, Donghyuck asks Mark to tell him about his designs, his creations, his ideas. It seems to fascinate Donghyuck in a way that it didn’t Mark. Perhaps as a child he felt that same wonder, but growing up by the side of a genius, it was easy to forget how special Daedalus really was.

And for that, Mark is grateful. Donghyuck had given him everything, including the reminder of how much he loved his father (and how much he missed him).

∾

The sun rises on a new day and Mark knows something is different about it. There’s almost no pain when he wakes, no ache when he moves, no raw and tearing sensation in his skin. Testing the waters, he stands, walking towards the mirror in the corner of his room.

Turning around, head over his shoulder, Mark takes in the sight. Blooming on his back, from the spine outwards, are faint red lines. They are not as distinct as scars but are still clearly there, tracing the faint shape of wings, where the sun branded the image of flight into his skin.

It’s confronting at first, but soon Mark finds himself admiring it in a strange way. It’s almost artistic.

Mark sighs, pulling on a light white blouse and pants. He notices the absence of the pain that he had become so accustomed to as he dresses himself. Each time he would lift his arms, pain would rip through his back, another reminder of the fall from the sky. And yet, today, there is no pain.

Outside, Mark can see the sun is already high, its golden light blooming like a flower in the turquoise sky. The flowers outside his window wave him good morning.

Mark finds Donghyuck on the patio of the temple. There’s a book in his fingers, a quill and ink by his side, pieces of yellow parchment spread absentmindedly on the marble floor. He leans against one of the columns, wrapped by vines of laurel like fingers.

He’s clad in his usual golden chiton, the one that drapes like warm honey across his sunkissed torso, revealing his lean figure. Despite the passing of quite a bit of time, Mark has yet to get used to the sight. Today is no different.

Donghyuck looks beautiful, his golden eyes glimmering in the morning light as he looks up, meeting Mark’s eyes.

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, a little speechless. “You’re...”

Mark smiles.

“Healed, I think,” he says, moving surprisingly easily out of the doorframe and onto the patio.

The marble is cool underneath his bare feet. He moves towards Donghyuck, taking a seat on the floor next to him. Donghyuck closes his book, a bright smile blooming on his face.

“I can’t believe it,” Donghyuck says, biting his bottom lip to stop his smile from widening.

“Actually, I can,” Mark says, rubbing at his neck. He’s sure there’s a blush on his cheeks, and he hopes it can be passed as the fault of the burning sun on his skin. “It’s all because of you, Donghyuck.”

Now it’s Donghyuck’s turn to blush. He laughs, waving Mark off. “No, no, no. You were injured pretty badly. Your recovery must have been the will of the gods,” Donghyuck says, his eyes flicking upwards. Mark’s do too, and they both spend a moment like that, pondering on the mysterious ways of the deities above.

“If you’re up to it, I would love to show you the island,” Donghyuck interjects excitedly.

“I would love you to,” Mark responds without missing a beat. Despite spending over a month on the island, he has yet to leave the temple. As beautiful as it is, Mark longs to see the landscape beyond its walls (and even more so to see it try and compete with the beauty of the son of Apollo himself).

They share comfortable conversation on the patio for the next hour, eating freshly plucked grapes and sipping on rosehip tea. When silence falls, Mark finds himself on a patio lounge, head buried in a book. Beside him, Donghyuck scribbles on parchment, brow furrowed, humming a delicate tune under his breath. Mark wonders what he is writing but doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to disturb the sight of Donghyuck in thought, as if it is a moment so precious that it could slip from his fingers.

Eventually, Donghyuck shifts away, and Mark notes the immediate loss of heat.

“Shall we go?” he asks, rolling the parchment into a scroll with his hands, eyes watching Mark.

“Of course,” Mark nods, and so they take off.

∾

Donghyuck takes Mark to the fields first. Beneath the brilliant blue sky, it doesn’t take long to reach them, bordering the temple on all sides. They are full of sunlilies, as well as other weedier flowers – bursts of lilac and fuchsia – that Mark hadn’t been able to see from his room.

The flower fields spread for miles in every direction, only interrupted by a tall forest in the east. They pass it on the way to the beach, and Mark hasn’t seen anything like it. Tall, skinny trunks of birch reach for the sky, their leaves opening overhead and creating a canopy of filtered yellow and green light. Shorter, more dense elms and willows intersperse throughout the density of trees, their leaves curving and dangling low like a necklace on a woman’s chest. Birds chirp happily, their songs echoing throughout the forest. Mark can imagine the feeling of soft leaves between his toes, a book in his hands, lying beneath the canopy.

He’s pulled from his imagination when Donghyuck sighs wistfully next to him. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he asks, although Mark can feel that his eyes are on him, not the forest. Mark nods, ignoring the beating of his heart and looks at the forest, too afraid of what he might find if he meets Donghyuck’s eyes.

“I’ll take you there later. But first, the beach,” Donghyuck says, and Mark can hear the smile in his voice.

It doesn’t take them long to reach it, as the flower fields slope down towards the shore of the island, where land runs out and meets the sea. As the ground beneath their feet fades from flowers, to grass, and finally to sand, Mark notices something that he hadn’t before: the beach is decorated with pearly seashells, one’s he couldn’t see from the temple, glinting in the light. They look like precious jewels, lost in a shipwreck and washed ashore. The deep blue water of the ocean crashes against rocks on the shore which fail to protect the white sand from the water’s touch.

Mesmerised, Mark watches the waves roll in, volumes of blue cascading forwards, unravelling in white seafoam on the sand. Next to him, Donghyuck pauses too, eyes moving between Mark and the ocean. After a moment, he speaks. Mark can only just hear the words above the sound of crashing waves.

“Let me show you my favourite place on the island,”

He feels warmth wrapping itself around his hand, which he quickly realises is Donghyuck’s own hand intertwining their fingers. Warmth blossoms in his heart like a flower in spring, butterflies fluttering nervously in his stomach.

He smiles but doesn’t mention it, allowing Donghyuck to pull him away from the shore. They walk in comfortable silence back through the fields, heading to the west side of the island. Flowers tickle gently at Mark’s bare feet as they traverse the fields, past the temple. As the hill starts to slope again, the shore of the island’s other side becomes visible. Mark assumes that’s where Donghyuck is taking him, until suddenly Donghyuck turns, pulling him to the right and ducking beneath a patch of willow trees.

For a few moments all Mark can see is green. The low hanging leaves run their fingers over his face until they reemerge on the other side. What Mark doesn’t expect to find there is a crystal blue lagoon, sparkling under the golden sun where the island curves inwards on itself in a semicircle.

It’s beautiful, and it feels like the first time Mark feels the sun on his skin, really feels it. He digs his toes in the sand, watching the yellow light dance on the shimmering surface of the water. White sand outlines it on all sides, and lilypads of green and pink float atop the water. Forest hugs the lagoon in an embrace of privacy and secrecy, casting speckled shade across the sand. Donghyuck turns to face him, their hands still interlaced. There’s a warm smile on his delicate features, his hair tousled and his cheeks pink.

“I can see why this is your favourite place,” Mark says, tearing his eyes away from the boy beside him and back to the lagoon. If the island were a body, the lagoon would be her heart, a paradise of peace and tranquility.

That same moment of quiet is broken when Donghyuck abruptly tears his hand away from Mark’s, suddenly bubbling with laughter as he runs towards the water. Mark watches in both bewilderment and delight as the boy tumbles into the water ungracefully, a swirl of child-like laughter and golden skin.

He resurfaces after a few moments, silk robe clinging to his skin, turning sheer under the weight of the water, revealing more of his elegant figure. Mark can’t help his eyes which instinctively roam over the nymph’s gorgeous figure, past the curve of his collarbones, his nipples and stomach to where the clear water laps at his hip bones. Donghyuck runs a hand through his hair, and Mark decides he likes Donghyuck’s forehead just as much as he likes every other part of him.

Around Donghyuck the bottom half of his robe floats on the surface of the water like a halo. When Mark’s eyes flick back to his face, Donghyuck is watching him with a mischievous grin. Then, his long fingers pull off the chiton like its weight is a burden. He discards it in the water and Mark watches it float away to avoid meeting Donghyuck’s gaze again. He can feel the blush rising to his cheeks.

“Mark!” Donghyuck squeals between giggles, still laughing. He does a graceful twirl in the water. “Come in!”

There’s a brilliant smile on his face, rivalling the radiance of the sun. “The water will be good for your wounds!”

Although a little hesitant, Mark obliges. His skin feels a little tender, yet the invitation is almost irresistible. The lagoon is like the home of a siren, tempting and beckoning him in with its crystal water and glimmering sunlight. (And with a voice made of liquid gold, maybe Donghyuck is the siren).

Donghyuck watches him with a smile that has faded from excitement to encouragement, as he waits patiently for Mark to join him. Mark yelps when his toes meet the water (it’s colder than he expected), but soon his body adjusts. When he’s up to his waist in water, his pants feel strange, heavy around his legs like chains to the seabed.

Mark’s heart skips a beat when Donghyuck takes his hands, gently guiding him further into the water. When it laps against his back, it stings, and Mark bites down a hiss of pain. Donghyuck’s expression immediately shifts to one of concern. His hands tighten on Mark’s.

“Are you alright?” Donghyuck asks, eyes searching his. Mark nods, letting out a laugh as the tension in his body subsides. After a few more moments, the pain melts into pleasure, the salt caressing his wounds like a healing potion. Feeling bold, Mark dives beneath the surface of the water, now fully submerged.

He opens his eyes to an underwater world of rainbow fish and seashells. When he resurfaces Donghyuck is laughing.

“What?” Mark asks. Donghyuck points at him with one hand, the other covering his mouth in laughter.

Mark reaches up to discover a stray lilypad placed perfectly on top of his head. He flicks it off with a huff, mildly embarrassed, but soon joins Donghyuck in laughter when he finds no malice in the other boy’s eyes, only kindness.

They play under the sun like that for a while, alternating between floating atop the surface to stare at the sun, and swimming around each other in circles, talking comfortable nonsense. Not long after entering the water, Mark removed his silk blouse, allowing him to maneuver through the water freely. A sense of bliss washes over him like the waves crashing against the island. In his many years of isolation in a damp, dark labyrinth, Mark had missed the ocean more than anything. But to be here – on this island – it makes Mark wonder if he had missed this more. If one _could_ miss something they had never had before.

At some point the conversation lapses and is replaced with a battle of splashing and diving. The two boys take turns attacking and fleeing each other, in a chaotic onslaught of water and hands, like two koi fish circling each other eternally.

Finally, Mark gains the upper hand. When Donghyuck tries to splash him, Mark spots an opening, and being faster than him, manages to catch his wrist.

Instead of laughter or cries of defeat spilling from Donghyuck’s mouth, their eyes meet and a moment of silence falls between them, Donghyuck’s slender wrist still caught in Mark’s grip. It’s tense and coiling with something alive, like the beating of a heart. Yet it passes like the cycling of a moon, leaving Mark breathless as he watches Donghyuck wade away, a playful grin on his lips.

The sun is beginning to set in a lilac night sky as they leave. Mark watches the way Donghyuck’s body moves out of the water with fluidity and elegance, like a statue chiseled from marble. He watches the way the golden sunlight, rotating on the horizon, ripples through his golden locks like waves. The way his sun kissed skin glints in the early evening light.

He is a vision, a renaissance, the image of beauty captured in a frame.

Or maybe, Mark is just falling in love.

∾

That night, Mark and Donghyuck have dinner together under the stars. They lie on a handwoven rug in the sunlily fields, only big enough for two, a wooden basket filled with food between them. The night is clear and the constellations in the sky tell the stories of epic battles and forbidden loves. Mark can smell wildflowers and honeysuckle.

As Mark tells Donghyuck stories of his past, there’s a wonder in his eyes that reminds Mark of a lost creature, one that is trapped and isolated. Lonely.

Seeing the spark in his eyes keeps Mark talking. It keeps him from rolling his eyes as Donghyuck asks him, again, about his father or his childhood or what it was like to fly, despite the fact that it hurts to think of his father so constantly.

Donghyuck saved his life. To give him back a piece of his wanderlust and curiosity is the least Mark seeks to do.

∾

Days or weeks pass, he cannot tell, filled with laughter and exploration, tender silences and shared glances. One day they find themselves passing the hours by a natural gorge in the woods by the lilyfields. It’s a narrow stream, only a few metres wide, caressed on either side by a riverbed of weedy green grass. It separates the woods into two clean halves, a breath of air amongst the density of trees.

The water is clear and cold against the exposed skin of Mark’s ankles. When they visited the waterfall on the north face of the island a few sunrises prior, Donghyuck had told him it flowed all the way to the south, through the woods.

Said boy is sprawled lazily on the grass by the water, leaning against the trunk of one of the many trees which tower over them. His golden chiton glimmers in light filtering through the forest's canopy, a quill and piece of parchment in his hands. He hums contently under his breath, occasionally flicking his eyes up to Mark when he thinks he isn’t looking (though when it comes to this beautiful nymph, Mark is always looking).

Mark stands in the cold stream, his pants pulled up to his knees and his hair messily off his face as he collects weeds and roots from the river. Donghyuck told him that he usually collects them for cooking and medicine but had run out a few days ago. Mark had insisted he be the one to do the labour, as it was the least he could do to repay Donghyuck. (Donghyuck had initially protested but Mark managed to convince him he is healed enough now. The pure concern Donghyuck had for him made his heart do strange things in his chest).

Now Mark listens to the sound of the river, to the chirping of birds and Donghyuck’s melodic voice, and he sighs in content. Occasionally small fish nip at his ankles as they pass by in the stream, and it tickles, which makes Mark abruptly squeal and do an embarrassing dance to escape their bites. Donghyuck doesn’t miss the opportunity to look up from his paper and laugh at him, but Mark doesn’t mind. Happiness looks gorgeous on him.

After a while Mark plucks up the courage to enquire about the paper in Donghyuck’s hands, a mysterious scroll that had followed them on many of their adventures. When he asks Donghyuck what it is, the boy, like a true son of Apollo, reveals that it is his poetry. He then offers to read it to Mark, an offer Mark does not hesitate to accept.

So Donghyuck reads to Mark as he plucks at the plants, their roots burrowed deeply into the seabeds like fingers and hands.

_For love, my heart is a hummingbird._

_A bumbling honeybee in a field of daffodils,_   
_drunk and intoxicated on the sweet nectar_   
_on her lips, the gentle curve of his nose._

_Around me, spring is in bloom;_   
_Petals of rouge and fuchsia spread their legs for the sun,_   
_and I am filled with longing._

_There’s a murmuration on the horizon,_   
_a renaissance as starlings take flight,_   
_and, naked and dripping in wildflowers,_   
_I am reborn from the shore._

Donghyuck’s words are beautifully simple, and Mark adds this to the ever growing list of things he loves about him. There’s something deep and yearning in his writing, the way he talks about love. It’s something Mark wants to understand. Something Mark himself understands.

Mark tells him that it’s beautiful, and Donghyuck practically beams. After that, a comfortable silence resumes, and it feels insane but Mark feels infinitely grateful for the sun, who decided to melt his wings and send him plummeting towards the earth, crashing into the sea off the coast of Icaria. What an unusual thing to be grateful for.

But he feels guilt, too. Guilt that whilst he is safe here, in a haven falling in love with a beautiful boy, Daedalus may still be out there, battling for safety or perhaps even freedom.

Donghyuck must sense that something is wrong, because he asks Mark if he is alright. After everything Donghyuck has done for him, he doesn’t want to burden him further with his worries, so he shakes his head and pulls a smile onto his face.

“I’m okay,” he says, and Donghyuck relaxes a little, but he doesn’t look completely convinced.

∾

Several nights later, Mark has a nightmare.

It’s the same one that has been haunting him for months. The image of Minos’ face taunts him, morphing between expressions of laughter and violence as he chases him down the tunnels and passages of a maze. When Mark turns around, he can’t see Minos, he can only hear his maniacal laughter.

Sometimes, he sees his father in his dreams too. Tonight is one of those times. It’s a scene of torture that makes something in his stomach twist painfully, Minos slaying a weak and crippled Daedalus with ease.

Mark blinks awake with a muffled scream. In the darkness, the ghost of Minos’ face continues to stare back at him. His eyes eventually adjust and the image fades, replaced by the dim view of the bedroom’s walls, the vase of flowers opposite his bed still bursting with life. Donghyuck had taken to replacing them with new flowers everyday.

Mark tosses and turns in the bed but it’s a fruitless endeavour. An hour passes, and he hasn’t fallen back to sleep.

Now, all elusive tendrils of tiredness have slipped away, and he is completely awake. His heart drums insistently in his chest, as if urging him to do something, anything. He feels restless and agitated, and part of him wonders if it’s a full moon. Something feels off.

Eventually, Mark decides to get out of bed. From his window he can see a dark and cloudy night, the sun still nowhere to be seen. With quiet steps, hesitant not to wake Donghyuck, Mark finds himself wandering out of his room and into the main living area, where scrolls of writing and books are still piled on the table, a pot of herbal tea and two glasses of nectar accompanying them. It’s a fond reminder of the peace Mark had felt only hours ago, sitting beside Donghyuck in the warmth of the summer evening.

A cool breeze ripples through the temple from the open patio, and Mark can see the trees in the distant woods swaying. In the quiet darkness of the night, Mark feels alone. Alone with only his thoughts for company.

He finds himself missing Donghyuck, the warmth and serenity that being around him brings. Months have passed and Mark is not tired of being around him, or of seeing his beautiful face every day. A thought runs through his head. His heart pounds in his chest, so loud in the silence that Mark can hear it in his ears like a drum, as he walks down the hallway towards Donghyuck’s room. Maybe it’s selfish, maybe it’s silly, but in his sleep-deprived delirium, all he wants is to be with Donghyuck.

When Mark reaches the door, he hesitates, before pushing it open gently. It creaks and he winces. Surely he has woken up Donghyuck. And yet, he is met with silence. Mark moves quietly into the room, but in the dimly lit room he finds an empty bed. Donghyuck is not here.

His body tenses and suddenly he feels cold, a painful chill of fear trickling down his spine. Immediately his thoughts become a tangled mess of worry. _Had his dream been a premonition? Some kind of oracle from Delphi? Was Minos still out there? Had he found him?_

Now alert and running on pure adrenaline, Mark calls out Donghyuck’s name. He is met with silence. He hurries to check the other rooms of the temple, but finds nothing. Donghyuck is gone.


	2. flight

Mark pulls on a shirt and runs out of the temple, moving not with thought or strategy but pure panic. He tramples through the fields of flowers, stems and branches snapping under his feet. The empty woods echo the sound back to him, owls hooting quietly in the distance. The ocean lapping at the shore fills the silence between each desperate step Mark takes.

First he checks the lagoon, then the shore of the beach and then the woods, to no avail. There isn’t a hint or sign of Donghyuck anywhere. Not in the temple or any of the spots Mark expected to find him. As he paces back through the fields toward the temple, the insane idea that perhaps Donghyuck never existed dances in his head. It’s a cruel thought, but his unhelpful mind often provided him with those during desperate times.

Mark has just about given up all hope when he hears his voice. It’s unmistakably Donghyuck, singing somewhere nearby with his voice of pure gold. Melodic words overflow from his lips and call Mark closer, like a beacon of light guiding him home.

Mark follows the sound until he finds him at the centre of a clearing in the wildflowers, perched by a lake Mark knows is that same one that flows through the forest. Donghyuck must notice his presence because he immediately stops singing. At first he looks frightened, but when he recognises Mark his face relaxes and a soft smile brightens his features.

Mark deflates in visible relief, his heart still pounding, too afraid to slow down in case this is another mirage.

“Donghyuck?” Mark calls, inching closer to where the boy sits by the water.

“Mark?” Donghyuck asks back, looking confused. “What’s wrong?”

Mark sighs. “I couldn’t find you,” he almost whispers. “I was so worried.”

For a moment, Donghyuck looks even more confused, before his lips twist into a smirk. “Worried?” he asks almost incredulously. Mark nods. “Why?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I came looking for you,” Mark says, before he can stop himself. He rubs at the back of his neck, hoping Donghyuck can’t see the blush on his cheeks in the darkness. “I couldn’t find you anywhere, so I thought something might have happened. I thought...” Mark trails off, watching as Donghyuck’s dangerous smirk turns to a soft smile.

“Come here,” Donghyuck beckons him closer, so Mark moves to sit next to him by the riverbank. “I’m okay, you don’t have to worry,” Donghyuck says. “We’re safe here, Mark. You’re safe,” he finishes, and the words resonate in his head for a moment before he instantly relaxes. Part of him wonders if Donghyuck knows he has that effect on him.

Donghyuck shifts and rests his head on Mark’s shoulder, sighing against his chest. Something tickles at Mark's chin and he realises it's a crown, woven of flowers and laced through Donghyuck’s hair. Under the moonlight he looks like a prince.

“Why couldn’t you sleep?” Donghyuck mumbles against Mark’s chest, his voice worried again. Mark weighs his options for a moment.

He knows that he would feel better if he opened up to Donghyuck and told him what was troubling him, but part of him still resisted, the part of him that still felt guilty for being so lucky.

Some time must pass because Donghyuck sits up to look at him, placing gentle fingers on Mark’s chin and guiding him so that their eyes meet. Mark’s heart skips a beat but he swallows it.

Donghyuck doesn't say anything, just waits patiently for Mark to speak.

“I’ve been having nightmares,” Mark says, “since I got here, really.”

Donghyuck looks surprised, and he pauses before he asks what they’re about.

Mark hesitates but decides to tell the truth. There’s something melting in Donghyuck’s eyes, and he suddenly feels tired, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep, truly sleep. Under Donghyuck’s gaze he feels safe.

“King Minos. My father. The maze,” Donghyuck looks sympathetic and also a little sad.

“I'm sorry that I didn’t realise something was bothering you,” Donghyuck says, as if he was expected to be a mind reader. Mark laughs and shakes his head, and in a moment of boldness, takes Donghyuck’s hands in his. The boy softens.

“Donghyuck, it’s okay. You’re not the Oracle,” Mark tries to make Donghyuck laugh, and it works because the boy cracks a smile at his dumb joke. “I didn't tell you because I didn't want to burden you. You've already done so much.”

Donghyuck smiles, they look at each other for a while, the moonlight swimming in Donghyuck’s bright eyes. In that moment, Mark wants to kiss him. To close the what little distance remains between them, to feel Donghyuck’s heart-shaped lips on his, to see what he tastes like.

He doesn't though, because he is suddenly interrupted by a thought.

“Donghyuck?”

“Hm?” Donghyuck looks dazed, and Mark lets himself wonder if perhaps he had been thinking of the same things as Mark.

“What were you doing out here?” he asks, and Donghyuck looks surprised, as if he expected Mark to say something else. But then he smiles.

“It's a full moon tonight, so I came here to pluck the moonlillies. They grow by this part of the lake, and only bloom on full moons.”

Donghyuck gestures around them, and only then does Mark notice the flowers surrounding them, silver like the nighttime counterpart of the golden sunlillies that covered the island by day. The flowers are in full bloom, their petals open wide and smiling up at the moon.

Donghyuck tells him all about their medicinal properties, how apparently delicious they taste (Mark is doubtful), and how they were created by Artemis as a gift to her brother. Mark only half listens, basking in the fascination and passion that dances in Donghyuck’s eyes, on his lips as he talks about the things he loves.

Part of his mind wonders, as it often does, to questions of Donghyuck’s past, how he ended up here, and what other things make him come alive with so much passion.

Eventually the stars lose their twinkle as the sun rises on the horizon, and Mark is dozing off with his head on Donghyuck’s thigh when the latter suggests they go home. They walk back to the temple together, and when they enter the space, Donghyuck breaks the silence with an invitation.

( _Would you sleep better if I were with you?_ he had asked, and Mark felt his heart plummet in his chest. Nothing was comparable to the peace he felt with Donghyuck, so he hadn’t hesitated to say yes.)

That is how Mark finds himself in Donghyuck’s bedroom, not too dissimilar from his own, albeit with more books than Mark thought possible stuffed into the shelves. The bed is spacious with plenty of room for them to keep between them, and yet they are intertwined, Donghyuck’s arms around Mark’s waist, holding him close. Mark tries to steady his breathing, to sleep now that he knows he can, but his mind is awake, so aware of the heat radiating from the golden boy next to him. That same boy that he so desperately wants to kiss. The same boy he wants to see melt like honey beneath his fingers.

Eventually he does sleep, though, overcome with sheer exhaustion. When he wakes the next morning to the smell of sweet syrup and strawberries, Mark knows it’s the best sleep he has had in a long, long time.

∾

Mark remembers the following weeks in snippets. They are vivid images, captured in frames like watercolour paintings staining the pages of his mind, ones he can flip through with ease.

There’s him and Donghyuck, telling stories as they walk through the fields under the midday sun, picking flowers from their roots. There’s the picnics by the shore, lying together on a small blanket, throwing grapes, chasing the waves and each other, laughing until their stomachs ache. There’s the hours spent in the comfortable silence of Donghyuck’s library, the smell of steaming tea, parchment and light filtering through the windows.

They had grown into a comfortable harmony, a sense of peace and ease permeating the temple, dancing in the glances they stole at each other between pages.

Sometimes Mark let his mind wander. To Donghyuck’s golden lips, the amber mirth in his eyes, the wit of his silvertongue. Mark had grown fond of his humour, just as sarcastic and mocking as it was warm and affectionate. (Mark admits it is odd to be the subject of that affection). Sometimes he lets himself imagine what it would be like to hold him, to kiss him, to lay with him. These thoughts come with guilt too and he feels selfish, as though he is taking advantage of his gracious host.

But he doesn’t miss the way Donghyuck looks at him sometimes, when he thinks he isn’t looking. The way he glances up from his book to watch Mark, or the way his eyes linger on Mark’s chest when they swim in the lagoon. Or the way his heart beats a little erratically when Mark can’t sleep and finds himself crawling into his bed, laying against his chest.

Part of him wonders if he is just imagining it. Is it just the light, which always seems to melt in Donghyuck’s beautiful irises? Or are they really filled with that unreadable look Mark can’t decipher, dancing somewhere between affection and desire? Is that just what Mark wants to see? What he wants to find when he looks in there?

Whatever the case, Mark is grateful to be here, in Icaria with Donghyuck, and whatever luck he earned to end up here he did not want to push.

One warm night they’re laying in the fields, not too far from the patio of the temple. The gentle sound of the moonlily lake flowing nearby and the quiet chirping of crickets and frogs replaces the usual sounds of daytime. Nighttime picnics have become a tradition, a way to pass the time comfortably in each other’s presence.

Tonight they watch the clouds dance in the sky in front of the stars. Donghyuck points at different constellations and tells stories of lost lovers immortalised in the stars by the gods. His imagination is vivid and completely unhindered by logic, and it makes Mark laugh. Donghyuck seems to like that, because everytime he does, Donghyuck turns to look at him, watching his lips curl into a smile.

They never run out of things to talk about. The connection between them is natural and organic, one Mark had only ever come across once before in his lifetime. The thought of his childhood best friend, Jaemin, brings with it a heavy feeling that blooms like ink in his chest. The silence that falls between them becomes thick and tense with a palpable sense of longing. Donghyuck must sense the change, because he turns to look at Mark again, this time with a look of concern. Mark almost laughs, as a concerned look on Donghyuck’s face was quickly becoming a familiar sight.

“Is something bothering you?” Donghyuck asks, and Mark can tell he’s choosing his words carefully.

“Nightmares again?” Donghyuck asks as he rolls onto his side to face Mark, reaching across the space between them with a gentle hand which finds Mark’s own and intertwines their fingers. Mark doesn’t try to hide the way he relaxes, his breathing evening out. He closes his eyes.

“I’m okay. It’s just, sometimes, you remind me of my best friend,” Mark says, and he hears Donghyuck’s breathing falter. “I used to be able to talk to him for hours on end, too,” and he can’t help but smile, memories of his wide-eyed, toothy-grinned, silver haired best friend flooding in. Memories of a simpler time, before the maze, before Minos had ever heard of his father and his talents. A time where Mark was just a child, vibrant and free, surrounded by those he loves. _Like you are now,_ his heart whispers.

“Do I?” Donghyuck asks. Mark can see what he thinks is a blush on his cheeks, despite the starlight. Mark nods, biting his lips to hold back a laugh. Donghyuck looks so endearing like this, vulnerable and flattered, warm.

“He was just as smart as you. Just as kind,” Mark says, but his smile fades.

“I miss him,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s admitted it outloud. The tears he had cried for his friend had been lost in the darkness of the labyrinth, smothering by the silence.

“What happened to him?” Donghyuck asks, so quiet Mark almost doesn’t hear him. The question doesn’t feel invasive though. Over the past few moon cycles Mark has come to trust Donghyuck. Why shouldn’t he, after everything he has done?

“I don’t know,” Mark says, and it’s the truth. “I haven’t seen him since I was thirteen.”

Donghyuck doesn’t speak, but he can’t mask his surprise. Through silence he provides Mark the space to continue.

“The last time I saw him was the day Minos came to our home. The day he coerced my father to work for him. That was seven years ago, now,” Mark says, and it’s as though he is reliving that painful day all over again. So much time had passed and yet the wound is still there, as fresh as if it were inflicted only yesterday.

“I’m so sorry, Mark,” Donghyuck says, his eyes slightly sparkling with unshed tears. There’s something deeply understanding swimming there, something that tells Mark he understands in more ways than one. Mark reaches up to cup his cheek, whispering a “You don’t have to be sorry. It isn’t your fault.”

Donghyuck’s eyes fall, his long eyelashes fluttering over his cheeks, and Mark watches the way he bites his lip in thought. Mark feels his interest piquing, having spent weeks wondering what goes on inside Donghyuck’s mind.

“Mark, there’s something I should tell you,” Donghyuck interrupts his thoughts. His expression is neutral but there’s a quiver of doubt beneath the surface. As if on instinct, Mark sits up, crossing his legs to face Donghyuck so he can see the boy properly. Donghyuck looks back at him in confusion before following his motions. Once they are sitting opposite each other, Mark takes Donghyuck’s slightly shaking hands in his, rubbing circles on his skin. Donghyuck sighs, his head low. Mark waits.

When Donghyuck finally speaks, what he says is not what Mark had expected.

“I think it’s time that I told you how I ended up here,” Donghyuck says, and in his shock Mark’s mind is immediately cast back to the night he first asked Donghyuck about that very thing; the way he had closed himself off like a clam; the way he had gone silent and cold. Mark is quick to refuse him.

“Donghyuck, you don’t have to do that,” he urges, holding Donghyuck’s hands firmly. He searches for his eyes before saying “You don’t owe me anything.”

“You have opened up to me about so many things, Mark. And yet of me you know nothing. Let me do the same,” Donghyuck says, and he looks more confident now, more assured.

There’s the ghost of a smile on his lips, but it’s a sad smile. It may be selfish, but part of Mark deeply wants to know. He has been living with Donghyuck in the present, learning things about him in the now, with no knowledge of the path he walked to get here, the memories of a whole other life trapped entirely inside his head.

Mark finally nods, encouraging him to go ahead. When Donghyuck speaks, words of truth tumble forth, as if when he opened his lips he opened his soul, too.

“The reason I’m here is because I ran away from home,” Donghyuck breathes. “I had a good life in Delos, with my sister, my mother. We spent our days by the ocean, reading and writing together. Sometimes we crossed the ocean to the mainland, visited the temples the mortals made in our honour.” Donghyuck is smiling, but then his expression turns sour.

“Apollo, my father, never approved, but he stayed silent. He and my mother weren’t happy, but she overlooked it for the sake of me and my sister. She wanted us to have a good life. When I turned sixteen, everything changed. My father tried to force me into a marriage I did not want. It was with a son of Ares, known to be cruel and violent. I was terrified.”

Mark feels his heart sinking in his chest, anger brewing on the horizon of his heart like a storm.

“So, one night rain hit the island, and I ran away,” Donghyuck pauses, his eyes glazing over as if reliving the moment. “I would have been lost at sea, probably dead, if it weren’t for Aphrodite. She had always seen me as one of her sons, and so she took pity on me. She sent the erotes to guide me, blowing the winds and sailing me towards an island that wasn’t on the map. Somewhere Apollo couldn’t find me.”

He pauses.

“That island is Icaria.”

A moment passes where they look at each other, a thousand unspoken words filling the silence. Realisation washes over Mark in waves, and it's cold and chilling, the wonder of possibility cold on his neck. It is the perplexing reality that Donghyuck found himself on an island bearing Mark’s own namesake. Mark can almost see the strings of the universe being pulled, the unravelling of time guided by gentle hands, a force somewhere above guiding them together. It’s an insane thought, but it’s possible.

Then, Donghyuck speaks again.

“I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, Icarus.”

There’s a charged moment of silence. Mark’s heart pounds in his chest, beating against the weight of the words Donghyuck just spoke. _Does he feel it too? The connection between us? Something natural, pulling us together like the magnetism of the moon?_ And then another thought crosses his mind, one that makes him pale as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

“Donghyuck.”

“Yes?” Donghyuck’s eyes are wide with unabashed hope, and in that moment Mark knows Donghyuck feels it too.

“What if,” Mark takes a breath, aware of how insane what he is about to say sounds. “Apollo melted my wings on purpose? What if he sent me here, to you, as some sort of peace offering?”

Donghyuck looks surprised, but doesn’t deny it immediately. He seems to consider the suggestion, but then he bursts out laughing. Mark is so surprised that he watches in confusion. When Donghyuck catches his breath, he smirks.

“What makes you so special, Mark?” he says, and his usual fiery wit is there again. Mark knows there’s no poison to it though, only jest, so he laughs before defending himself.

“I fell from the sky right off the coast of your island. What are the chances of that?” Mark asks, biting back the smile on his lips. Donghyuck stops laughing too, as if taking the suggestion more seriously.

“If that is true, then he must have known where I was,” Donghyuck says, and both he and Mark know that is likely possible for a god to find out where his son is hiding. Donghyuck looks saddened by this realisation, but then he shifts again.

“What are the chances that I ended up on an island seemingly named after you?” Donghyuck asks, finally articulating the thought that had been swimming silently between them.

Mark can’t answer that question, either because he doesn’t know, or because he does know that there is almost no way that what happened is by chance.

A peaceful silence falls and Mark lays back down under the stars, Donghyuck following him. He pulls Donghyuck close, hugging the boy into his chest.

“Thank you for opening up to me, Donghyuck,” he says, and he can feel Donghyuck’s breath fanning out against his neck.

“Thank you for being here with me,” Donghyuck says, and whilst a warmth blossoms in his chest at the words, so too does the weight of how incredibly lonely it must have been for Donghyuck, alone in the middle of the ocean. At that moment Mark realises that he doesn’t care whether he was destined to end up on Icaria, if there was some divine interference, or not. He doesn’t care because he knows that this is where he wants to be, and that’s enough.

∾

It’s that same night that they kiss for the first time.

It doesn’t happen like Mark thought it might; initiated by him, probably rejected, and not reciprocated.

In fact, it’s Donghyuck, who after a while of laying together in silence under the stars, shifts towards Mark, wraps his hands around his neck and pulls him into a kiss that steals his breath.

At first Mark freezes, pure shock pulsing through his blood. It happens so fast, his mind doesn’t have time to register what is happening. Beneath him, Donghyuck stiffens, interpreting Mark’s reaction as a rejection.

Before that thought can poison the moment, before it can steal from Mark something he had been so desperately wanting, he melts against Donghyuck’s mouth. The boy sighs against his lips in relief, making Mark’s heart dance in his chest.

Their lips fit together like two halves of the same whole, meeting halfway in perfect balance. Their lips tell the tale of two souls who have loved before, many times and in many lives. They move against each other in an orchestrated dance, stealing breathless kisses from each other’s mouths and licking their tongues along each other’s lips, like the battle of two heroes.

Donghyuck shifts until he’s lying on his back, pulling Mark on top of him, offering him the position of the victor. The thought of conquering Donghyuck in a battle makes his head spin. Mark has to catch himself, a hand on Donghyuck’s side to prevent himself from collapsing on him.

Donghyuck’s eyes meet his, his back arching slightly to meet Mark’s torso. Beneath him, he looks beautiful.

Mark cups Donghyuck’s cheek gently, already drunk on the feeling. Donghyuck tastes better than Mark could have imagined; equally sweet like honey and spicy like cinnamon, with a lick of salt like the ocean. His lips are soft and plump and fit perfectly beneath Mark’s own.

One of Donghyuck’s hands remains on his neck, holding him close, whilst the other runs through Mark’s hair, fingers tangling with his dark locks and tugging him down until their lips meet again.

They continue like this for a while. It feels like chasing an elusive spirit, a feeling Mark can never get enough of. Donghyuck beneath him, their lips together, it feels like drinking nectar from the source.

But he’s becoming greedy, and he wants more. The way Donghyuck grips his neck as if he is worried he will pull away, the way he pants against Mark’s lips when they pause for air, the way his cheeks are flushed a furious rouge under the moonlight goes straight to Mark’s head. The idea that Donghyuck, the beautiful and intelligent nymph, wants him too is intoxicating.

Mark lowers his mouth to kiss along Donghyuck’s jaw, along his neck and beneath his ear. One particular spot earns a moan from his mouth, and Mark has to pause, because it is arguably the most beautiful sound he has ever heard. Donghyuck seems to trust him entirely, to be so vulnerable beneath him, in a way that Mark had dreamed of for months. All the shared smiles and stolen glances, days and nights spent together, by each other’s side, had culminated in this. Donghyuck, laid beneath him, encircled by flowers and dipped in silver by the moonlight.

It’s also that night that they lay together for the first time; underneath the stars with the gods and goddesses as their witnesses.

Mark kisses lower until his lips are grazing over Donghyuck’s exposed nipple. Donghyuck moans again. His breathing is heavy and laboured, hands threaded in Mark’s hair, pushing him lower. Heat pools in his stomach as he obliges, kissing lower and lower until he is between Donghyuck’s legs, which spread for him like honey.

His thighs are soft and golden, dimpling where Mark’s fingers press into his thighs, and Mark wastes no time kissing along every inch of them until he reaches Donghyuck’s hip bones. They arch and fall like the slopes of mountains, defined by his lean frame. Before Mark can go further, he sits up to look at Donghyuck. The boy before him is a mess, a pile of golden limbs, with his legs spread and his weight propped up on his elbows, head thrown back in a wreck.

He moans when Mark stops, head snapping up to meet Mark’s own. His eyes look desperate, as if he had been dreaming of this for as long as Mark had, keeping it under wraps, hiding his feelings and desires behind the books he buried his head in.

“Do you want this?” Mark asks, and his voice sounds unfamiliar even to him, deeper and rough, tainted by lust.

Donghyuck bites his lip and nods, looking lost for words. He takes a moment to catch his breath, knowing what Mark is waiting for.

“Yes, I do,” he says, his voice so smooth and melodic despite the wrecked expression on his face. “I want you, Icarus.”

Those words on Donghyuck’s lips is all Mark needs to hear.

He hears Donghyuck gasp when his hands brush over the fabric that covers his erection. Instinctively he arches his back, searching for more contact, more than just the ghost of Mark’s touch. It makes Mark wish he had done this sooner. It makes him wonder why he had hesitated for so long, had pushed down his feelings, had assumed Donghyuck didn’t feel the same way.

None of that matters to him now, though. Not when he has Donghyuck like this, fully hard, chest heaving, desperate for his touch.

Mark lowers his lips from where he had sucked a love bite on Donghyuck’s hipbone. He lets his breath fan out over Donghyuck’s length, watches the way his eyes squeeze shut and his breathing grows more erratic.

“Mark, please,” he says through each breath.

Then, finally, Mark obeys. With his tongue he licks at the tip, tasting all of Donghyuck, before taking all of him in his mouth. Donghyuck’s hips immediately snap up as he moans, an uninhibited sound of pure pleasure. Donghyuck watches him with half-lidded eyes, and Mark holds his gaze. He watches the way his lips part to release another moan, as Mark moves up and down, loving the feeling that he is unravelling Donghyuck with every motion of his mouth.

Mark continues, moving fast enough to provide pleasure but not enough to give him what he wants, trapping him in a delirious purgatory between pleasure and pain. He doesn’t want to rush this. He wants to live and breathe every moment of it with Donghyuck.

He releases Donghyuck from his mouth, watching as Donghyuck finds his eyes, a look of desperation in them.

“Mark,” he says, and nothing else, but Mark is moving back up towards him, already missing the feeling of his lips. They meet again and the kiss is just as breathtaking as the first. Donghyuck is radiating heat beneath him, and despite the dark he still looks golden, testimony to his place as the son of the sun.

Then, Donghyuck catches Mark by surprise when he moves with surprising agility, flipping them over so that Mark is now on his back and Donghyuck is straddling his hips.

Mark huffs in surprise, his back colliding with the ground, and he laughs. Donghyuck smiles down at him, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He bends down, lips against Mark’s ears sending a shiver down his spine as he whispers.

“I’m going to get what I want, Icarus,” and it’s as if the words are liquid pleasure, because they wash over Mark like a wave of ambrosia. He decides Donghyuck looks even better on top of him.

“I don’t doubt that, Donghyuck,” Mark breathes, a smile still on his lips as Donghyuck kisses down his neck and along his collar bones, his fingers unbuttoning the clasps of his blouse. When Donghyuck pulls it off, he stares down at Mark’s chest, his eyes raking over his body with a mixture of hunger and wonder. It’s the same way he had looked at Mark that day at the lagoon, weeks ago, and Mark feels like a fool.

Donghyuck moves lower, imitating the path Mark traced on his body moments earlier, until those same fingers are removing Mark’s pants, too. With anyone else he would have felt vulnerable, laying naked and exposed like this. But Donghyuck had shown him so much trust of his own, and he trusts Donghyuck more than he imagined he would, so he bites down the urge to hide and embraces the more potent feeling of desire pulsing through his body.

Donghyuck runs his hand down Mark’s chest, his eyes grazing over every inch of his body, his lip caught between his teeth.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, meeting Mark’s eyes. It has been a while since someone uttered those words to him, and coming from the most beautiful person he has ever seen. It’s an overwhelming thought that Donghyuck finds him beautiful, and Mark closes his eyes, covering them with his arm. Donghyuck laughs and moves to kiss Mark’s cheeks. Now both naked, their chests are flush together, and Mark has never felt so warm.

“I mean it,” Donghyuck says, now serious. “You are.”

And Mark can’t bear the blush on his cheeks or the convulsing of his heart any longer, so he cups Donghyuck’s cheek again, pulling him into a kiss. It’s slightly awkward because they are smiling against each other’s lips.

Their legs tangled together, Mark rolls them over again, supporting his weight on his elbows so he can lean over Donghyuck without separating their lips. Donghyuck’s hands roam hungrily down his chest until they find Mark’s erection.

Mark gasps against Donghyuck’s lips as his hands wrap around his length, stroking upwards and back down at a tantalising pace that has Mark wanting more. His hands are warm and move effortlessly, as if he has loved like this a thousand times before. He moves his hand from where it had settled against Donghyuck’s neck, trailing gently down his abdomen and hovering over the space between his thighs, asking for permission.

Donghyuck spreads them without missing a beat, watching with half lucid eyes as Mark enters a finger inside of him. He moans around Mark’s fingers as he inserts a second, and then a third, stretching Donghyuck open with ease.

As Mark removes his fingers and hovers over Donghyuck, he would be lying if he said he hadn’t imagined this moment a thousand times over. Donghyuck looks impossibly more beautiful than he ever has like this. His golden locks are messy, forehead sweaty, eyes gazing up at Mark’s own with a passionate fire burning deep within them. He’s naked and exposed, and his golden skin glimmers in the moonlight, legs spread shamelessly for Mark.

Their eyes meet again, and then their lips, each kiss growing needier and more desperate, Donghyuck raising his hips, chasing friction against Mark’s body. Mark kisses his cheek and then whispers into his ear.

“Are you ready?” he asks, and although the question is ambiguous, Donghyuck knows what he means.

“Yes. I want all of you,” Donghyuck says, and Mark almost loses all control.

Donghyuck’s fingers curl in the blanket beneath them and a moan of pure pleasure escapes his lips as Mark pushes inside of him. A delirious rush pulses through Mark at the sound. Donghyuck is infinitely more warm and intoxicating than he could have imagined.

He kisses at Donghyuck’s temple as he drives inside him again, earning another gasp from Donghyuck’s parted lips as he finds a rhythm. Pleasure pulses through his body, enhanced by the sight of Donghyuck moaning in pleasure beneath him, his hand gripping Mark’s shoulder for support as their hips meet again and again.

“You’re so beautiful,” he mumbles against Donghyuck’s warm skin, and he can feel the boy beneath him smile.

Mark changes the angle, driving upwards, until he finds Donghyuck’s prostate. An uninhibited scream erupts from his mouth, and he moans as Mark continues to hit the same spot. With one hand, Mark strokes at Donghyuck’s erection rhythmically, each movement sending him closer and closer to the edge.

“Mark,” Donghyuck pants out desperately, his hands gripping Mark’s neck firmly, and Mark knows that he’s close, because he is too.

Taking him by surprise, Donghyuck flips them over with strength Mark didn’t know he had, and he finds himself on his back with Donghyuck straddling his waist. A laugh escapes Mark’s lips and Donghyuck grins at him mischievously, but it disappears into an expression of pleasure as he lifts his own weight and drives back down, riding Mark senseless.

Mark loves the way Donghyuck’s golden thighs look spread on either side of his length, loves the way Donghyuck’s head is thrown back and his hands rest on Mark’s chest for support, as if he is one fall away from completely unravelling.

And it’s just the two of them, beneath a myriad of starlight and constellations, doing the dance of two lovers, swaying together amongst the stars.

They’re kissing and rolling again until Mark is on top, chasing the tantalising tendrils of their orgasms together.

“Darling,” Mark whispers against Donghyuck’s lips, kissing at his neck, sucking a mark he knows will be there tomorrow. A reminder that this is real, and not just a dream. “Come for me,” he says, and that is all it takes for Donghyuck to come undone.

A surge of ecstasy rips through Mark’s body at the sight of Donghyuck coming, until he is too, and they are tumbling down through a whirlwind of pleasure together, riding every wave of their orgasm until there is no more to chase.

They collapse in mess of tangled limbs, Donghyuck curling in Mark’s arms, and he doesn’t keep track of how long they stay like that, or how long it takes before they head home, because all he knows is that Donghyuck is his, and he is Donghyuck’s, and in this moment that is all that matters.

∾

The sun has yet to break over the horizon when Mark feels it. The sickening sensation, purely instinctive, that something is wrong. It pulls him from sleep with violent hands, shaking him awake until he is sitting upright in the bed.

It’s completely primal, a swirling in his gut, a warrior’s instinct. There’s a shift in the atmosphere, like clouds parting to make way for a storm, something dark and ominous looming in the night’s sky.

A guttural roar sounds in the distance, one that screams for blood. Mark turns his head to the space next to him in the bed. For the second time, Donghyuck is gone.

∾

Embers of the golden fire lick at the low roof of the room, damp and otherwise pitch black were it not for the furious flames at the centre. They burn in the pit of a stone-slab bench, and over them an old man hunches, his worn and leathery hands concealed by gloves as he bends a piece of metal into submission.

Mark watches as his father sweats in the heat, his eyes fiery and resistant. Determined.

It takes him hours to complete it, but when he does, it seems to be all worth it.

The metal is still smoldering, scorching hot to the touch when Daedalus places the sword in his hands. It’s golden and elegant, intricate designs embroidering the handle. Yet it is dangerous and sharp, and Mark knows one swift glide through the air would reduce a man to a pile of blood and bones.

More importantly, it’s beautiful. Along the underside of the blade, a particular inscription catches Mark’s eye. It reads, _for Icarus_. Mark lurches towards his father, a grin on his lips as he pulls him into a hug. His father chuckles and Mark can feel his whole chest vibrate as he wraps his arms around him.

“Happy birthday, son.”

Mark smiles, more for his father than for him, because they both know he will never get to use it. It’s a symbolic gift, a distraction, forged from pain and sweat the same way their life now was.

Daedalus takes the blade in his beaten but gentle hands. He turns it once, twice, inspecting his work. Then, he presses on a mechanism on the handle that Mark hadn’t noticed, and the sword disappears.

Daedalus watches for his reaction and laughs when he finds it. Mark stares at him in disbelief; he considered himself used to his father’s wonderous designs, but he had managed to surprise him completely.

Mark’s shock quickly turns to laughter as his father pulls him into another embrace. They stay like that for a while, Mark sighing against his father’s chest, listening to the roaring flames which continue to flicker in the silence of the dark room.

Mark hadn’t known this would be the last birthday they would celebrate together.

∾

Before Mark is fully lucid, he has sandals strapped tightly to his calves, a golden ring wrapped around his finger, a broad, heavy sword in his hands, and he is running.

Running.

Out of the temple, and straight for the shore of the island, from where the roar sounded. The night is eerily silent, the marble, then grass and then sand crunching underfoot as the shoreline comes into view. The ocean is dark and black, the moon hidden behind angry clouds.

The first thing Mark sees when his feet hit the sand sends a chill down his spine, and for a moment, he is reliving every dark, whispered cry he ever made in the depths of the maze.

It’s Minos, standing on the shore. No longer is he a ghost haunting Mark’s nightmares, chasing restful sleep out of his grasp. He is real, right in front of Mark, in the flesh. He’s even taller than Mark remembers, His chest taut with muscle and his stance wide, casting the shadow of a monster on the sand. His beard cascades from his cruel face like the angry waves of the ocean behind him, and his eyes are black, so black, they pierce through Mark’s soul.

He steadies himself, which proves incredibly difficult as his eyes land on another detail he had missed. He finds Donghyuck, trapped like a deer in the arms of Minos with a silver knife to his throat.

Mark’s heart sinks in his chest, his stomach contorting painfully and his heart erratic with fear. Mark can hear his heart break in two when he meets Donghyuck’s eyes, finds the look of pure, isolated fear there.

He takes a deep breath. If not for himself, he must be strong. For Donghyuck.

“So this is where you escaped to, _Icarus_ ,” Minos says, and his booming voice rings in Mark’s ears, threatening to drown him. There’s a maniacal grin on his lips, his teeth a stained yellow glinting dully in the moonlight.

“How did you find me?” Mark bites back, tasting blood as he bites down on his tongue, willing it to stop quivering.

“Your little pet here sure makes some pretty noises,” Minos says, his eyes drifting to Donghyuck’s face, running a calloused finger along his tanned skin. Donghyuck’s nostrils are flared as he keeps his face still, closing his eyes against Minos’ touch, and Mark feels rage, red and hot, burn in his bloodstream. “We could hear you from Knossos.” Minos laughs, his calculated eyes falling on Mark again.

“You’re lying,” Mark spits back. “How did you find us?” he repeats, more anger than fear in his voice this time.

“Ah, but I wasn’t wrong, was I? I know what you two have been up to here, _Mark_ ,” Minos says, and his blood boils even hotter under his skin at the use of the name his mother gave him. The name he only allowed few to use.

“How did you find us here?” Mark repeats the question, ignoring the comment from Minos. He knows he’s being baited, like a mouse into a trap, and he had almost fallen for it, were it not for the look Donghyuck sends him, reminding him to tread wisely. Minos has him exactly where he wants, and for the sake of keeping Donghyuck safe, Mark must be careful.

“You’re more demanding than I remember,” Minos laughs, as if it’s a funny joke. But then he finally answers. “I had some help from Phobos, you see.”

Mark is confused, as the name sounds familiar but he can’t place it. Donghyuck does, though, because a cry of terror escapes his lips before he can stop it. Their eyes meet and Mark tries desperately to understand.

“You remember Phobos, don’t you Donghyuck?” Minos asks in a mockingly sweet voice, his hands running over Donghyuck’s chin again. “He misses you dearly,” Minos says, his wicked laugh erupting again. Donghyuck closes his eyes as a single tear runs down his face, and it all clicks inside Mark’s head, the pieces of the puzzle fitting together.

 _Phobos_. The son of Ares.

“What do you want?” Mark asks as an idea comes to mind.

“I came for you, Mark. You and your father disobeyed me. You must be punished,” Minos says, and his black, hollow eyes are sinking into Mark’s skin again, the laughter gone. The mention of his father’s name sends an electric chill down his spine.

“My father isn’t here.”

“I know,” Minos says, and Mark’s heart sinks in his chest. Perhaps he is finally going to get an answer to the question that had haunted him for months; _is my father alive?_

“He managed to elude me, using some of his tricks. Word has it he found safety, but even my spies in every corner of the world couldn’t find him,”

Relief floods through Mark like a stream, tension that had built up since the day he fell from the sky dissipating. His father is safe. _My father is safe._

That’s before his eyes find Donghyuck and he is brought back to reality.

“It doesn’t matter, though,” Minos speaks again, and Mark is hanging off his every word. “I now have the one thing that will truly break him,” he pauses.

“You.”

Mark takes a deep breath. He had anticipated this, expected it. It was too good to be true. Falling from the sky only to find himself in the arms of a tender, intelligent nymph? Every heroic myth had its denouement. Every story had its moral lesson. Fate had it that this was Mark’s.

“If I am what you want, then you can have me,” Mark breathes, lowering his gaze to avoid the evil grin that erupts on Minos’ face.

“I will hand myself over to you, if you let him go,” he says, and before he has even finished Donghyuck is kicking and struggling in Minos’ grip, the knife at his throat still so close to his skin, and he is screaming no, his eyes watering and desperate as they search Mark’s own.

“We have a deal, then,” Minos says and Mark nods in agreement. Donghyuck thrashes harder, convulsing in a desperate attempt to escape, to come to Mark, and he wants him to so badly, to feel his tender hands on his cheeks, his soft lips on his own. But he has to do this, for Donghyuck to survive, so he drops his sword. It’s flat and heavy and slaps the sand with a dull thud. A flicker of delight sparkles in Minos’ dark eyes as he tosses Donghyuck aside with scary ease, as if he were just a plaything, serving only as bait for the real prey. Donghyuck hits the sand, tumbling to a stop, and when he looks up and meets Mark’s eyes again, he still looks golden, even under the pale wash of moonlight.

He stays still, either paralysed by fear or in the knowledge that he could never defeat Minos. Instead, he watches helplessly as Minos advances toward Mark with the smug grin of a victor. Donghyuck lets out another scream but doesn’t move, watching in horror as Minos closes the space between himself and Mark.

Mark’s heart is beating in his chest, pure adrenaline and fight instinct pumping through his veins, as if he were drunk on the energy of war. Time seems to stop, or at least slow, as his instinct kicks in.

When Minos is close enough, his guard down and thinking he has won, Mark moves. It’s so swift and fast that it’s barely detectable, as Mark moves through the air, revealing an entire brass sword unfolding from the golden ring around his finger.

For a moment, Minos is stunned, and Mark seizes the opening to drive the blade cleanly through the centre of his chest.

“A gift from my father,” Mark spits out, watching as crimson spurts and then pours from the wound. Minos’ calloused hands move to wrap around Mark’s neck, and for a moment he sees white as his brain is cut off from oxygen entirely. Donghyuck is on his feet in an instant, kicking and screaming at Minos to release him, but it doesn’t last.

Soon his hands go limp, as he drops to his knees, then onto his side, becoming nothing more than a lifeless lump on the sand.

∾

Mark can see his breath curling as he pants into the night. Donghyuck watches him with wide eyes, gold glinting in them as the sun finally reveals herself, peering over the horizon to see the bloodstained shore for herself.

“Mark...”

Neither of them move for a moment that stretches out into perhaps eternity. This distance between them feels like it’s stretching and collapsing simultaneously, as the events of the evening unfold again in the eyes of their minds. Mark moves first, snapping from his reverie to help Donghyuck.

“Are you alright?” he asks, taking Donghyuck’s cheeks in his hands, inspecting his face, his neck, for any trace of Minos and his disgusting touch.

“I’m fine” Donghyuck urges, and his eyes are flooded with worry again. “Are you alright?” he asks, his eyes searching Mark’s neck which will no doubt be decorated with an angry purple halo the next day. Mark nods, but Donghyuck looks far from convinced.

“That was Minos,” Donghyuck breathes, a statement more than a question. His hands come to rest on Mark’s own on his cheeks, and he interlocks their fingers, pulling him closer.

“You don’t have to worry about him, anymore. He’s gone now. You’re safe,” Donghyuck whispers in the space between their lips.

“And so is my father,” Mark breathes back, a smile on his lips despite the pure panicked energy that is still running through him. Donghyuck smiles back.

“We’re safe.” Donghyuck says. A thought comes to Mark.

“What about Phobos?” he asks, not missing the way Donghyuck’s expression falls. He doesn’t say anything for a while, so Mark speaks again.

“I will protect you, Donghyuck. If he ever comes here, or tries to hurt you, I will protect you,” Mark says, and his voice is unwavering. The smile returns to Donghyuck’s lips as they look at Minos’ lifeless body on the sand and then back at each other, their noses brushing.

There’s silence, and they’re staring into each other’s eyes, an unspoken promise connecting them in a silver lining that transcends time and space.

And then, they kiss, and it feels just as exhilarating as the first time.

∾

Later that day, as the sun is beginning to set, Mark wakes to the smell of peppermint and ginger. He opens his eyes which proves difficult, the heavy kiss of sleep still weighing them down.

He sighs and rolls over, hands instinctively reaching for the warm presence that brought him comfort. When his hands can’t find Donghyuck, he reluctantly opens his eyes to an empty bed. Immediately, the events of the previous night and morning flood back.

They had stayed there, on the shore. Under the stars which faded in the morning sky, they shared kisses and soft whispers, hands in each other’s hair, pulling each other close. The exhaustion started to seep in like poison, like a drug lulling him to sleep. And he had tried to fight it, to will it away so that he could have this moment with Donghyuck for a little longer. He was being greedy again, like when he was in the sky, high on the euphoria of flight, and had ventured too close to the sun. Because with Donghyuck, he was greedy. Donghyuck made him feel like he was flying.

They had wandered back to the temple, hands intertwined, Donghyuck leading Mark to his room instead. They both knew it was just to sleep; pain, fear, exhaustion and restlessness swirling heavily in their stomachs. They had fallen asleep, Donghyuck in Mark’s arms, his soft hair tickling Mark’s neck, parted heart-shaped lips against Mark’s chest, running his fingers through his hair gently as he faded away to a land where it was just him, Donghyuck, and nothing else.

Donghyuck’s absence in the bed doesn’t frighten Mark the way it had the previous night. They are safe now, and he can smell fresh flowers and bread, can hear Donghyuck humming in the kitchen.

So when he gets up, hair a ruffled mess and still shirtless, he finds Donghyuck in the atrium boiling rose petals over the flames.

“Good morning,” Donghyuck sings, and Mark laughs lazily, too tired to match his energy. “Clearly someone was tired,” he says, and maybe Mark had been. Perhaps this was the first sleep in years where he could actually rest.

Instead, Mark wraps his arms around Donghyuck’s waist, resting his chin on his shoulder. He breathes in the floral smell of roses which mixes with Donghyuck’s sweet honey scent, his heart calm and content in his chest. Donghyuck arches his neck backwards to rest on Mark’s shoulder, and he presses a kiss to his temple.

For a moment, he thinks of the Labyrinth. Of it’s damp and dark tunnels unfolding like the web of a spider. It had been a shame to call it home, but it had been that nonetheless.

Mark didn’t miss it, though. He liked it here, where the sun shone unabashedly in the sky, the water was clear, the birds sung. He liked it here, where Donghyuck was. With his sweet voice and his golden skin. He liked it here, where he had found love, in the curves of an ethereal nymph.

“I wish I could stay here, forever,” Mark breathes against Donghyuck’s neck. The boy pauses, turning in Mark's embrace so that they are now facing each other.

“Why can’t you?” Donghyuck asks, eyes searching his own. Mark ponders it for a moment. The question hadn’t crossed his mind. Why couldn’t he? Daedalus is safe. King Minos is dead. He is free, more free than he had ever been. Even more free than he had been when he had wings. The question should be a heavy one, a decision that changes the course of his life, something he should consider at length. And yet, the answer is so easy, so obvious, and for once, it comes from both his head and his heart, unanimously and unequivocally.

“If I want to, will you let me stay?”

“Of course,” Donghyuck all but beams, but then he scoffs and rolls his eyes, as if that were a question Mark need not have asked.

Silence falls and Mark seems to fall too, deeper in love and deeper into those amber eyes which stare back at him, full of light and laughter. Then Donghyuck wraps an arm around his neck and pulls him down until their lips meet and sparks fly in his heart, that same warmth blossoming in his chest like honey, running through his veins, kissing away the blue until they are nothing but golden.

∾

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed hehe ♡ please leave kudos and let me know what you thought in the comments! find me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) and curious cat [here](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies) ! have a lovely day : )


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